"We burned every one of them, and used their vile books to stoke the blaze higher still. The bone-fires burned for three days, and their hot fat ran down the gutters like rain-water. It was a sight to behold."
- —Theo Kratz, Witch Hunter recalling the destruction of the Untersuchung.[1a]
The Untersuchung was a now-defunct secret society dedicated to exposing and fighting Chaos corruption within the Empire. It was a clandestine part of the Reiksguard, but was comprised of civilian agents rather than knights. It was destroyed through the machinations of the lord protector of the Templar Witch Hunters, who sought to eliminate it as a political adversary of his own organisation.[2a][1c]
History[]
Training agents to secretly investigate, interrogate -- and eventually -- infiltrate Chaos Cults, this secretive organisation operated in almost every Electoral Province of the Empire. Waging a secret war in the eternal struggle to eliminate Chaos, few citizens were aware that such a society even existed. Regardless of such anonymity, the Untersuchung was responsible for the removal of numerous cults, corrupted officials, and the termination of myriad Chaos plots, all without the public even catching a whiff of something rotten.[1b]
The organisation often butted heads with the Order of the Silver Hammer, which abhorred the secretive tactics employed by the Untersuchung, and would viciously argue with the agency's members over points of jurisdiction and Imperial regulation -- even though they both fought a common enemy. Eventually things came to a head, and the lord protector of the Templar Witch Hunters was said to have received word that the agency was dealing with the very dark forces they were sworn to fight, and he received dispensation from the Grand Theogonist himself to investigate the headquarters of the Untersuchung.
Afterwards, the Templar Witch Hunters declared all agents of the Untersuchung heretics and enemies of the state, and went to work apprehending all who were affiliated with the organisation; setting them alight on great pyres lined with countless documents that were said to have burned for three days.[1d]
However, there was in reality no such evidence that the Untersuchung had fallen under the sway of the Ruinous Powers: The lord protector of the Templar Witch Hunters had simply hated the agency so much that he had created false rumours of its potential corruption, and possibly even forged holy orders to investigate the agency.[1d]
Those innocent agents of the Untersuchung that were not captured scattered themselves throughout the Empire and are now living their lives in complete secrecy, always under the threat from the watchful eyes of witch hunters. Nevertheless, there is still one former agent, Karl Hoche, who still has not given up the crusade against Chaos, and some say that he roams the outskirts of the Empire looking for other former agents still sympathetic to his cause...[1e]